Tonight’s decisive victory by Democrat Kathy Hochul in the NY-26 special election will be tomorrow’s No. 1 topic of political conversation. Why did Hochul win a seat so Republican that John McCain won it handily, one of only four New York House seats to resist Obama? While the parties will argue over whether ads attacking Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan were to blame, a look at the underlying demographics confirms a year-long trend against the GOP among blue-collar whites.
NY-26 combines two types of territory: suburban precincts around Buffalo (Erie County) and Rochester (Monroe County), and largely rural territory in between. The suburban parts are highly educated by national standards, while the education level in the district’s five other counties is well below the national average. The town of Amherst in Erie County is the most educated part, with over 50 percent having at least a B.A.; Orleans County is the least educated, in which only 14 percent of adults have a college degree.
The results so far show Hochul doing best in educated Erie County. At this writing, she has 53 percent of the vote there, three points ahead of Obama. She is the Erie County Clerk, so perhaps this is a “hometown” effect — but it’s interesting that Erie is also Jack Davis’s worst county; he’s getting only 7 percent here. In the rest of the district, Hochul is running even with or slightly behind Obama. However, these are Davis’s best counties — every vote he wins here is coming straight from the Republican, Jane Corwin. And Davis’s share of the vote increases the less educated the county is. Davis is receiving between 11 and 15 percent in the four counties with fewer than 20 percent college-educated adults, and only 8 percent in more educated Monroe County.
It’s bad enough that Hochul is running even with Obama’s totals from the best Democratic year in the past three decades. But the comparison to 2010 is truly frightening. Republicans were competitive in two statewide races last year, those for comptroller and attorney general. Fueled by the GOP wave, the Republican candidates in those races received 66 and 60 percent in NY-26 — well above McCain’s 52 percent in 2008 and George W. Bush’s 55 percent in 2004. Hochul is running 15 points ahead of the lowest performing 2010 Democrat, and, because of Davis, Republican Jane Corwin is running about 18 percent below the lowest performing Republican.
The verdict is clear. For whatever reason, the blue-collar independents and Democrats who voted Republican in droves last year did not vote GOP tonight. And many blue-collar Republicans voted for Davis rather than Corwin.
It’s true that one should not read too much into one election. Joseph Cao’s surprise win in New Orleans did not mean blacks were moving to the GOP, and Charles Djou won a three-way special in Democratic Honolulu in May only to lose the seat in a two-way race in the fall. But these underlying trends are consistent with the results obtained recently in Wisconsin (see here and here).
As I’ve written before, blue-collar voters react differently to issues than the GOP base does. They are more supportive of safety-net programs at the same time as they are strongly opposed to large government programs in general. These voters crave stability and are uncertain of their ability to compete in a globalized economy that values higher education more each year. They are also susceptible to the age-old Democratic argument that the secret Republican agenda is to eviscerate middle-class entitlements to fund tax cuts for the wealthy.
The truth is, if conservatives and Republicans are to move forward with entitlement reform (as they should), they need to address the real concerns of these pivotal voters. Eric Cantor’s recent statements that Ryan’s plan is the only way to protect Medicare is a step in the right direction, because the truth is that the president’s plan does not ensure that Medicare will remain strong in the face of gigantic budget deficits as far as the eye can see. And to the extent that he does offer a solution, it’s in the form of bureaucratic and political price setting — a rationing of care via the unelected IPAB and CMS bureaucrats. Blue-collar whites do not trust government generally; they certainly will not like that.
Republicans need to fight the war over the future of Medicare fiercely and intelligently. Perhaps tonight’s debacle will be the wake-up call they sorely need.
— Henry Olsen is a vice president of the American Enterprise Institute and the director of its National Research Initiative.
The only wake-up call needed after tonight's debacle is to somehow figure out a way for dozens of House Republicans to walk back their ill-considered votes for the Ryan budget.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNewt was absolutely correct in his analysis that Ryan's budget, especially his ideas on entitlement reform, represented hubris and would harm the party. Instead of at least considering his point, posters on this board reacted hysterically, and would have us shoot the messenger. Please, end Ryan worship, he's all wrong.
"Blue collar voters" want my money and they'll elect whoever they think is most likely to take it from me and give it to them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe whole effort by Ryan and the GOP leadership was a unenforced error. While many have praised Ryan, I found the whole effort rather amateurish and the initial push by everyone on the right intelligentsia(The Corner especially) rather phony and artificial.
You have to keep things simple. Republicans can not win with austerity. You can't win with talking individual cuts. The Republicans should have agreed to capping the growth of spending at 3% with a target of 20% of GDP spending by the federal government. They should have put out multiple plans within that framework. Individual cuts should always be talked about as being prioritizing for other spending and the 3%/20% framework should be constantly brought up.
The American people want cruise control out of their government. They do not want a crash nor do they want acceleration. Americans want things prioritize, they do not want to stuff or starve the beast.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePeople around these parts are entitlement junkies, union thugs, and naive uninformed fools. They fell for the same class warfare rubbish that they always fall for, and remained stubbornly uninformed about the horrible state of the economy, and the Paul Ryan proposal. Even many Republicans voted for Hochul simply because they thought she 'seemed nice'. Yes, I'm totally serious. A local Republican radio host spent a great deal of air time shilling for Hochul, even though he claimed to be against Obamacare and most Democrat policies. As for Jane Corwin, although she only lost by a nose hair, my only criticism of her campaign was that she was not aggressive enough in exposing the lies told by the Hochul campaign, i.e. about 'Medicare being squeezed to death' and 'tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires'. Sound familiar? Hochul used demagoguery and scare tactics, while Corwin used facts - but the demagoguery won. That along with the help from a slimy democrat plant named Jack Davis. Now...What did we learn?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>"The truth is, if conservatives and Republicans are to move forward with entitlement reform (as they should), they need to address the real concerns of these pivotal voters.
Until the lies and demagoguery of the Left and Democrats are rebutted and revealed as the sham the are - meant frighten people into clapping the shackles of bondage to government on themselves - then the ignorant, misled, and moochers will always have an undue influence on the process. A well-told lie will always beat a poorly-told truth and the Dems are well-practiced at fibbing.
>Republicans need to fight the war over the future of Medicare fiercely and intelligently.
Based on their previous track record, there is little hope that the Stupid Party is going to be able to overcome their inherent flat-footedness and mount an understandable case against statism.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe tea leaves in the special election will be read by the GOP establishment as what's needed is a big run to the middle. That means no entitlement reform and ObamaCare as a fact of life.
At the end of the day what folks will be left with is a speedy run to massive government under Democrats and a slow trot toward massive government under Republicans.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think DirkBelig hit the nail on the head. The stupid party doesn't know how to message, doesn't try to message, and seems totally flabberghasted and dumbfounded every time the Democrats engage in smears and vicious attacks. I could see them being caught unawares the first time it happened, but after 5 or 6 decades in a row you think that at the top of the list of every Republican planning session agenda would be "How to counter Democrat and media lies and distortions." And you would think that people at places like National Review would catch on to how utterly clueless Republicans are on such matters and run 5 or 6 cover-page stories in a row about how Republican political dimwittedness is threatening the survival of the republic. Why doesn't this critical situation garner more concern from conservative intellectual elites?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe problem I see is that as long as Warren Buffet gets Medicare, it cannot be described as a safety net program.
I generally support "safety nets", but a Medicare program that was a genuine "safety net" would be a quarter the size it is now.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm think his performance had more to do with his ads. They were juvenile. Particularly the one that showed a nice smiling airbrushed picture of him next to a black and white stern faced picture of her with the simple tag "who would you vote for?". Voters want serious people running for office.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBlue collar voters also tend to respond more to gut feelings about personality and character. I live in the 26th and was pained to see Chris Lee's self-destruction, and fully expected to see Corwin win until a few weeks ago when the wheels came off her campaign.
The election yesterday was not about Paul Ryan's budget plan -- no one here knows who Paul Ryan is except maybe for a vague recognition of his name from news shows. Neither was it mainly about Democratic claims that Jane Corwin would "end Medicare as we know it", although they certainly said that a gazillion times in tv and radio ads. Instead, this campaign was a perfect storm for Republicans -- a rich GOP candidate who came across as someone running for office because she needed a hobby, an incredibly bad GOP campaign in both strategy and tactics (e.g., Corwin started throwing mud at her opponents even before introducing herself to voters, so most voters' first impressions of her were as a mudslinger), and a good Democratic candidate coached by the NY masters like Chuck Schumer. Bluntly put, the Democrats fielded a better team, with better training. Let's not turn this into some kind of national referendum on anything. All politics is local.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseLet's see what I learn from NY 26: pseudo conservative ran a campaign in which she could not heartily defend her supposedly conservative values and lost. I think the lesson here is to all Lugars and Romneys out there - you will loose if voters can sense lack of authenticity in your conservative convictions.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe only way to protect Medicare?
By enacting an arbitrary (yet politically expedient) "You over here get screwed and you over there don't plus we'll cut your taxes" mandate?
If the Ryan plan even bothered to take fairness into account it would be a far easier sell. That it doesn't and its author seems not to care less has elevated it to official albatross status.
This is the kind of transparent attitude that is going to cost the GOP dearly not just in '12 but through the following congressional cycle.
BTW - Am I the only one who's getting really annoyed at a CAPTCHA that's forcing me to watch an ad?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMy understanding is that the fake "tea party" candidate was running on a platform of jobs, jobs, jobs. And many who would otherwise have voted R voted for him.
Did they do that because they like the idea of the tea party? Maybe, but they almost certainly did because they love the idea of jobs, jobs, jobs.
I know the Democrat was running on "Republicans are evil and Paul Ryan wants to literally murder your granny". I don't know what platform the Republican candidate was running on. Was she defending the Ryan plan? Was she "distancing" herself from it? Did she have an economic growth message?
If I knew the answers to some of these questions it would tell me more about the meaning of these results than comparing them to how this same pool of voters voted in prior elections.
But I will add this Republicans better start talking about the 15 unelected and unaccountable poo-bahs who will be making medical choices for medicare recipients under the alternate to the Ryan plan. The slogan ought to be "Who gets to make the choice, you or them?" or something like that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHow do Republicans imagine they are going to win without blue collar support? How does the "Republican base" think it can win without them? Guys--you cannot win America by winning Utah.
Give us a Pawlenty-Rubio ticket: ethnic, with a northeast/midwest blue collar appeal, followed by a reachout to Hispanics. We could win. If you give us another WASPish "Romney-Ryan" or something equally B-O-R-I-N-G (with the capacity for Democrats to target attack ads at) then at least have lots of copy ready at NR for the Second Obama Administration.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseA government voucher tied to "cost of living" increases, not "cost of healthcare" is a sure loser. People see through that right away. It's a complete dismantling of medicare and replacement with something different. It doesn't "save medicare", it abolishes it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe anti-democrat vote was 51-46. The "tea party" candidate took 9 percent on top of the 43% for the republican. Unless we can say that 20% of the Davis vote -- but for his running -- would have gone to Hochul versus Corwin, we cannot say that the democrat "won". GOP and Tea Party votes got the majority.
It doesn't keep that seat for us, but it makes any message from it murkier.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe lessons the GOP politicians should be taking are that they need to:
1. Not run quasicons.
2. Not engage in sex scandals.
3. Not tick off influential conservatives.
4. Expose Dem fake third party candidates for frauds.
This election wasn't remotely about Medicare. Sort of a perfect storm of incompetent state party, scandalous former office-holder, Dem dirty tricks, and a very weak "next in line" candidate.
BTW, the captcha phrase is "Click for DISH Now". You're welcome. NRO, stop it with the idiotic captchas.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNothing like Newt to help the cause of the Dems. But let's face it, and maybe someone should really wake up, the last election cycle was not won by Republican brilliance or ideas. It was the Tea Party and anger that drove the election, and since then the Republicans have given little to be excited about. That budget compromise you guys and the Speaker trumpeted helped quell the uprising, seeing as how everyone realized the Republicans were still a sham. What it looks like is business as usual, tax cuts for rich folks, huge government spending, and cheap talk about ending entitlements as we know them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI vote in the 26th, and at the ripe old age of 59, I was clearly the youngest voter at my polling site in Amherst. It took a lot longer than one would have thought possible for the handful of folks ahead of me to figure out how to slide their sheet of paper into that new fangled optical scanning machine.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNeedless to say, from this vantage point, Mediscare, and the tepid and mealy-mouthed defense of entitlement reform put up by Jane Corwin was THE issue.
I agree that we GOPers belong to "the stupid party." Our thoughtful component -- all of which does not reside in DC or NYC, although elements do -- is just too small to carry the deadweight of such a base of morons. God, being a very ironic god, often allows the base of "the stupid party" to arrive at the correct answer, as the spittle forms into tiny rivulets and drips off our chins. But we are almost as frightening as the envy-driven mobs of the left. To play with the notions of WFB, I'd rather be judged by the fans at a NASCAR race than the patrons of Lincoln Center. But I won't lie: I couldn't stand actually to be there at the stupid NASCAR race with them. Our base is fat, stupid, and frighteningly capricious and impetuous; Sarah Palin is the base's perfect candidate. I only throw in with this pitiable lot to try to save myself from the Richard Trumpkas, Al Sharptons, and Nancy Pelosis who are the heart and soul of the other party. And yes, I really, really despise the artful dodging "centrists" like the Maine sisters and opportunists like John McCain and Lindsey Graham. In fact, I pretty much hate everybody, including my dentist. Okay, there is a small coterie of cynical, apocalyptic visionaries at NR that I don't mind too much. And I wish we still had Florence King, whose reputation makes her sound awfully agreeable to me.
(I also hate this stupid captcha garbage which is the tackiest thing I ever saw and completely out of control. A decent, fair, capitalist idea at heart but out of control. Some Ayn Rand-reading space cadets need to be fired.)
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